


Bright Blood Red

by platinum_firebird



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, M/M, Minor Violence, Seasons of Anime Exchange 2020, mythical creatures AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/platinum_firebird/pseuds/platinum_firebird
Summary: Otabek thought maybe he ought to have put the dots together before now - ‘now’ being the moment he’d stepped into the back alley behind the hotel to find Yuri on his knees, leaning over a prone, unmoving body.
Relationships: Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27
Collections: Seasons of Anime Exchange 2020





	Bright Blood Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrospecial](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrospecial/gifts).



There was no question that Otabek Altin liked Yuri Pliesky. He felt they’d been drawn together since he first laid eyes on the Russian skater, and Barcelona had only confirmed his feelings.

That being said, there certainly were many ways in which Yuri Pliesky was…odd. In fact, there were so many that Otabek had drawn up a list.

Number one: aside from at competitions, Yuri was an incurable night owl. It wasn’t unusual for him to send Otabek texts at all hours of the night, or for him to get a snapchat of Yuri practising at the rink in the early hours of the morning Russian time. He appeared in the day time to skate his programs or exhibitions, but most of the time they spent together in person at competitions was after the sun had gone down.

Number two: Otabek very rarely saw him eat. Yuri would occasionally nibble at a cereal bar or sip a glass of water, but otherwise, he seemed completely adverse to sharing a snack or going out to eat, or putting himself in any situation where Otabek might be able to glimpse him consuming food.

Number three: he was scared of churches. Otabek could’ve understood an aversion to religion, but when he’d suggested visiting the Sagrada Familia when they were in Barcelona, Yuri hadn’t just looked unenthusiastic; Otabek had caught a flash of real _fear_ on his face, before he’d schooled it back into typical indifference.

Number four: he seemed to have a peculiar distaste for rivers, demanding that they choose a different street to walk along, last time they’d gone out for one of their midnight wanders.

Given all those signs, Otabek thought maybe he ought to have put the dots together before now - ‘now’ being the moment he’d stepped into the back alley behind the hotel to find Yuri on his knees, leaning over a prone, unmoving body.

 _That’s a lot of blood_ , was the first thought that crossed his mind as he stood, rooted to the spot.

 _That’s a lot of blood on Yuri_ , he thought, as Yuri slowly raised his head and locked eyes with him.

 _That’s a lot of blood on Yuri’s_ mouth.

 _Maybe I should run_ , Otabek thought, right before Yuri turned to him and held out a hand.

After that, he remembered nothing.

*

He woke up in the morning lying in bed in his hotel room, sunlight washing over his face from the half-open curtain. For a long moment he lay looking up at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that what he’d seen had been a dream.

But he never would’ve left the curtain half-open like that. Sitting up, he found himself still in his clothes, which was another black mark against the dream theory. From the taste of his mouth, he clearly hadn’t brushed his teeth, which he normally never neglected to do.

Yuri had clearly wanted him to _think_ what he’d seen was a dream. That hurt, a bit, that Yuri was so desperate to lie to him; but had he been in Yuri’s position, he conceded to himself that he too might not have been particularly eager to admit to his best friend that he was… Otabek’s mind recoiled away from the ‘v’ word. That he was… whatever Yuri was.

It was still early, so he let himself out of his hotel room and snuck downstairs, but poking around in the alley out back got him nowhere. Apparently Yuri had done a better job cleaning up the blood than he had at convincing Otabek to write the whole incident off as his imagination.

Back in his room, he sat on the bed for a long time, staring at his phone. Yuri was never up at this time - _because he stays up all night_ \- so there was very little chance he’d answer a text. Still, Otabek had absolutely zero desire to try and find him in person. He agonised over it for nearly an hour before typing out, _So are you a vampire?_ and hitting send. Then he put it in his pocket, and vowed not to look at it for the rest of the day.

They still had a whole day of competition ahead of them, but Yuri had a habit of appearing right before his program and disappearing directly afterward - another thing that should have made him suspicious, Otabek reflected, if he’d been _looking_ to be suspicious. But he hadn’t. He’d just blindly accepted all Yuri’s oddities, thinking they must have some normal, human explanation.

He watched Yuri glide around the rink, his skin almost as pale as the ice under his feet, and thought, _Yeah, he had you hook line and sinker, you sucker._

His distraction cost him a spot on the podium, which only made his mood fouler when a knock finally came at his door that evening. Glancing out the window, he saw that the sun was well below the horizon.

When he opened the door, Yuri was standing there; hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched, staring at the floor.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Then Yuri blew out an irritated breath and said, “Really?”

“So you do need an invitation,” Otabek said.

“Yeah I need an invitation, asshole,” Yuri said, not looking at him.

“Even for a hotel room?”

“The room like, becomes your ‘residence’ while you stay in it, or some shit,” Yuri snapped. “I don’t know how it works.” He finally lifted his head and glared at Otabek. “But do you really wanna have this conversation in the hallway?”

He had a point. Sighing, Otabek stepped back and said, “Please come in. Oh, and please don’t kill me.”

Yuri muttered something that contained several curse words and shoved past him into the room.

While he took a seat on the bed, Otabek said, “I guess I can’t tempt you with anything from the minibar.”

“Are you just gonna make asshole jokes all night?” Yuri demanded, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m just determining which of the stories are true,” Otabek said, sitting down across from him. “So far I’ve got ‘drinks blood’ and ‘can’t enter a house uninvited’. I’m guessing ‘sleeps in the daytime’ and ‘scared of churches’ are true too, right?”

For a second Yuri hesitated; then he looked away and muttered, “Hallowed ground. We can’t step on it.”

“Right. And crosses and crucifixes…?” Yuri made a disgusted face, which answered that. “What is it about rivers, though?”

“Running water,” Yuri said.

“So you’re scared of faucets?”

“Would you stop it with the vampire jokes!” Yuri yelled, and for a moment both of them stopped. Neither had said ‘vampire’ out loud - but now it hung in the air, as if the syllables lingered even in the silence.

“Sorry,” Otabek managed after a moment, “I think if I don’t laugh about this, I might just run screaming instead.”

“Please don’t do that,” Yuri said.

Otabek thought it was the sudden vulnerability in his eyes that made him say, “If it weren’t you, I think I’d already be on the other side of the country.”

They sat there, staring at each other, and Otabek was struck with the sudden powerful desire to reach out and take Yuri’s hand. He forced himself not to move. “Who else knows?”

“Yakov. He arranges things, y’know.”

Otabek felt sick. “Does ‘things’ include…victims?”

“No!” Yuri said quickly, looking suddenly scared. “That guy was an accident, okay? He was…he had this big cut on his arm, and I… I couldn’t…” He looked away again, his lip wobbling, and Otabek wondered suddenly if he could cry. “Sometimes I still can’t control it,” he whispered.

 _The bloodlust_ , Otabek thought, and the thought sent a shiver sliding down his spine.

“How long have you been…” Otabek gestured at him.

“Seventeen?” Yuri asked, his smile bitter.

“If I’m not allowed vampire jokes, you’re not either.”

“Fuck you, I’ll do what I want,” Yuri snapped, sounding as close to the Yuri Otabek knew as he had this whole time. Then he sighed. “Not very long - at least, in vampire terms. About fifty years.” He smiled humorlessly. “Most vampires can’t control themselves around humans as well as I can, not with only fifty years experience, but I guess I’m a _prodigy_ there.”

“Where do you get…y’know…”

“The blood?” Yuri shrugged. “That’s one of the things Yakov arranges. It comes in bags, like it’s from a hospital.”

“It seems like a big risk,” Otabek said. “The skating. On your part and his.”

“He gets a lot of money for his trouble,” Yuri said. “The person who Turned me has like, five hundred years worth of savings, so.”

Otabek nodded. “And you?”

“Honestly? Because being a vampire is fucking boring,” Yuri said. “There’s only so much eating people and hanging out in huge, drafty castles you can do before you long for fucking _anything_ else.”

“Can’t you like, turn into a bat? That sounds pretty cool,” Otabek said.

“Yeah, that’s fucking awesome!” Yuri said, a brief moment of excitement showing on his face. “But that’s like, the only perk.” He raised an eyebrow. “Any more questions, detective Altin?”

Otabek frowned. “Are you holding back?”

Yuri tilted his head. “In what?”

“Skating. Vampires are supposed to have superhuman strength and abilities, right? So why don’t you just win all the time?”

Yuri snorted. “Because the competitions happen in the daytime.” When Otabek frowned, he said, “I can’t use any of my ‘powers’ during the day, like turning into a bat or whatever. So, I’m not like a _human_ , but…”

“But you don’t have an unfair advantage,” Otabek concluded.

“Exactly.” Yuri gave him the finger. “As if I’d go easy on you, asshole.”

Otabek smiled despite himself, and they lapsed into a long silence.

Otabek still felt… suspicious about this whole thing, which he supposed was a natural reaction to finding out your best friend/crush was Undead and drank blood to survive. Yuri claimed the man in the alley was an accident, but he had nothing to go off except Yuri’s word, did he?

The thing was, he _knew_ Yuri. Had known him for close to two years now. It didn’t seem like he was lying.

“So,” he said, “What now?”

Yuri bit his lip, revealing just the wickedly sharp tip of his eyeteeth. “The thing is… you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone about it.”

Otabek gave him an unimpressed look. “Why?”

“Remember how I said someone Turned me?” Otabek nodded. “Yeah, well, they’ll be pretty fucking pissed if you go round running your mouth to everyone about how vampires are real.”

“And they’ll hunt me down and kill me,” Otabek said flatly.

“Or Turn you as well. Or make it so you forget you ever knew me.” Yuri winced. “They’re a lot better at the memory wipe thing than I am.”

“It was pretty hard to believe it was just a dream when I was still wearing my outfit from the previous day.”

“I didn’t want to just strip you naked!” Yuri said, looking scandalised.

“I’m glad you’re so concerned with my modesty, Yura.”

“I’m trying to be serious here!” Yuri burst out.

“I know. Sorry.” Otabek ran a hand through his hair, tugging it slowly through the strands. “Okay. If it’s a choice between keeping the secret and death-”

“Or Undeath,” Yuri muttered.

“Then I’ll keep it a secret. Promise.”

Yuri’s shoulders sagged for a second in relief - then tensed back up again instantly. He said, “Good,” but didn’t look happy. Instead he looked down at his hands for a second before standing. “I should let you sleep. Your flight is early.”

“Yura…” Otabek wanted to ask what was wrong, but he thought he already knew. He wanted to reassure Yuri that they would make it through this, still be friends - but he couldn’t lie. He wanted Yuri, as a friend, maybe more - but he was a _vampire_. That was going to take some time to reconcile.

“Text me, then,” he said as Yuri’s hand landed on the door. He wouldn’t be in danger over texts or on Skype, after all, and he couldn’t stand the thought of not talking to Yuri ever again.

Yuri looked back at him, his face holding a rare open expression of mingled hope and hesitation. “Okay,” he said, and then he was gone, slipping silently out the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
